Taking a break

I have been thinking about time. How much time I have to "myself", what I am doing with "my" time. One of the things that God has shown me is that it is NOT my time. First, He has put me here to do His will. When I walk in my own strength with my own agenda I get nowhere...and sometimes I think that I actually take a few steps back. I am so thankful for His grace and for His love for me.
In order to accomplish these things I started looking at where all my time was going.
1. Sleep was one of the top things. Hopefully getting on a regular schedule of getting up early will help me to not feel to tired all the time. Getting to bed also helps. :)
2. Kids. I don't think that there is much that I can change here. Nate is still working on potty training, Caleb is still teething, and the baby is still growing inside me. I am sure that they aren't ready to be out on their own yet. However, when I am in the word my reaction to them is pleasing to the Lord and will help train them in righteousness.
3. House. This sort of goes along with the kids. Whatever I do, they undo in half the time. Discouraging. But I can make sure that under all the toys is clean. I looked at the guest bathroom today and couldn't remember the last time I cleaned it. Yuck.
4. Computer. I realized after taking a few days away from Facebook just how much time is tied up in reading about other people's lives. Yes, I care so much about these people but honestly I haven't seen many of them for over ten years. Do I really need to know that they are mowing their lawn? Or spend time looking at the 100 pictures they posted from a vacation? Really? I have also started looking at the blogs that I read and what is helpful to me and what is (like facebook) just taking up time and not really beneficial at all.
5. Reading. I could read four 300 page books in a week. (not a shocker that my bathroom wasn't clean).

As I think about the last two things that have consumed my time recently I realized that I have been using them as an escape. I still don't feel at home here in Indiana. But I think that part of the reason is that I've been living somewhere else "the Internet"..I can still feel a part of Delaware or Tennessee or Illinois or Missouri when I am facebooking. Which is nice to a point, I think that I have been living there just a little too much.
Then, when I am reading....I become that character that is facing the challenges of solving a mystery and I can forget for a time my challenges of teething toddler and boundary testing three year old.

All that to say that I am taking a break from Facebook. I am going to blog some. I feel like I can control that time better than I can with facebook. I am also *gasp* limiting myself to one book a week. I am more than halfway through the book for this week and I am already wondering if I am going to be able to keep my promise to not start another one till Sunday. Maybe I will clean my guest bathroom.